Let's just hope for all the users that give out merit(merit sources and the general population alike) that other DT1 and DT2 members don't take your precedent and construe it to mean that perhaps they can go ahead and red trust meriters if they merit other types of posts that the DT member finds unsavory.
Giving red trust to someone for meriting a post that you disagree with, find offensive, or think was otherwise wrongfully merited isn't acceptable, and I
think that's why I'd originally excluded teeGUMES from my trust list. I thought that was terrible judgement on his part, but in any case I don't think anybody should be negging members for those reasons.
Personally, I think red trust for merit should only be done for selling/buying merit or using it to rank up an account farm.
Agree, but personally I wouldn't even give merit abusers a negative and I stopped doing so months ago. There is way too much subjectivity when it comes to handing out merits, and it's often difficult to prove someone has abused the merit system. Red paint should be applied very conservatively IMO.
I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that once you merit something it can not be removed. When handing out merit you actually need to think longer and harder about what you are doing than when leaving positive/neutral/negative trust because it can not be modified or taken away (unless post deletion/admin?). The conversation we should be having hasn't even been had yet because the attack dogs came out and tried to destroy me because I temporarily red tagged some of their favorite members, when these members permanently merited a public dox.
Did I use the wrong tool to bring light to this? Maybe/Probably. Is there a proper forum tool available? I don't think so.